Campaign launched for more stops at ‘forgotten’ Horsham station

A new campaign has been launched in a bid to get more rail services to stop at a ‘forgotten’ station in Horsham.

Sarah Henderson has been commuting from Littlehaven to London Victoria for work for more than eight years.

Last year Southern Rail announced a shake up of its train timetables which saw changes to services to and from the station on the edge of Roffey.

Sarah said the changes had meant the last Southern service to travel direct to Littlehaven now left Victoria just after 6pm which was too early for most commuters.

She said: “I appreciate that for some the new timetable has brought positive changes but for a large group of commuters who use Littlehaven station to travel to London Victoria we have not benefitted at all and it feels like our station has been completely forgotten. It’s a busy station and the new change has added up to an extra 30 minutes to our journeys.”

She said the only way to get to the station after 6pm was to change at Gatwick Airport or Three Bridges and wait for a Thameslink service which could take up to 30 minutes.

“The connecting trains are infrequent and are also often delayed or cancelled,” she added. “It’s so much harder now to make plans after work as you’re worried how you will get home.”

Sarah has launched new campaign Stop at my Station calling for a ‘very simple change’ to the timetable.

She has asked Govia Thameslink - which runs Southern services - to change some of the later Horsham routes to stop at Littlehaven when the train passes through.

She said: “I and the other commuters that get off at Littlehaven would really appreciate it if Southern could relook at their timetable. All we ask is if the pre-existing Horsham bound train that currently leaves Victoria at 18.36 and 19.06 could enroute add one to two minutes extra onto its journey to allow us to disembark at Littlehaven.”

Govia Thameslink said it would consider adding extra stops at the station as part of its next timetable change.

A spokesman for the rail service provider said: “The new timetable has delivered significant benefits for most passengers, with more peak time services and capacity between London and Horsham, just a mile from Littlehaven, and Littlehaven itself now benefits from a direct, fast service to London Bridge in peak periods. We recognise that some Littlehaven passengers may have preferred the previous timetable if it better suited their individual journey time and route, but there are still direct Victoria services, and journeys involving a change at Three Bridges are only 10 minutes longer.

“We have considered the feasibility of adding stops at Littlehaven on later evening services from Victoria, and when planning for future timetable changes we will continue to monitor demand for this. However, on this very busy network many other services would be affected by this change, and we will need to assess whether the benefits at Littlehaven would outweigh the negative consequences for thousands of passengers.”